In Excess: Fall's Most Influential Trends

From urban warriors and gothic romantics to Asian-inspired prints and baroque embroideries, designers hit the history books for their fall 2012 collections. But when it comes to navigating your everyday wardrobe, oversize coats and boxy boyfriend pants may be the best bets of the season

During the fall 2012 shows, designers who staged blockbuster productions—Marc Jacobs, who had a train built inside the Louvre for Louis Vuitton; Karl Lagerfeld, who created a crystal mine at the Grand Palais for Chanel; and, to some degree, Dolce & Gabbana, with its enormous gilded mirror and chandeliers dripping in flowers—had knockout collections that kept everyone upright in their seats. But they all showed designs so theatrical as to have little toehold in reality. Sure, sure, there's always something to wear back in the showroom, especially at Chanel, but still, and this is rhetorical, do labels really need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on sheer spectacle to get their messages across the Internet? It's all so Dr. Strangelove. On the flip side were designers who didn't (read: couldn't afford to) reach for that "big idea" but concentrated on showing "wearable" clothes, the problem with these being the ho-hum reaction they so often elicit—e.g., do women really need another black jacket in their closets?

Apparently they do. Especially if it's cut in high-grade embossed or embel­lished leather. Black is back for fall with an S&M-like vengeance, thanks no doubt to the aggro appeal of Rooney Mara's hard-core transformation into a modern­-day Joan of Arc in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Everyone from Alber Elbaz at Lanvin and Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino to Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors showed this tough luxe skin tricked out, molded, and embroidered, while some more utilitarian versions came from newcomers Hakaan and Thomas Tait. But the season's poster girl, an urban warrior if ever there was one, melds her steeliness with dark beauty, resurrecting a feeling of romance—be it Victorian, gothic, or medieval—thanks to the appearance of capes, chain mail, and armor influences.

Of course, not everyone is jumping on the black bandwagon. Haider Ackermann offered a sophisticated autumnal palette of exquisitely tailored elon­gated jackets, roomy pants, and silk blouses festooned with his signature draping. Ackermann doesn't rely on gimmicks or trends to finesse his silhouette, though you could argue that his complex draping is sometimes tricky. He does essentially the same thing season after season, and fashion insiders love him for it. But it raises the question, is it too much of a good thing when the eye (and customer) always craves something new?

Miuccia Prada certainly isn't afraid of a déjà vu moment. Asked about her collection of embellished long coats and vests, some in heavily patterned upholstery fabrics, she deflected the question with a dismissive, "I don't want to talk about ideas." Curious, considering how many ideas—and there were a lot—she put forward. There were deliberately bawdy jacquards, reconstructed menswear shapes, Plexiglas embroideries, crystal-adorned handbags, clownish Maryjanes. Prada has used herself as a reference before. And this season felt like a restaging of her greatest hits of awkward proportions and ugly beauty, two themes she loves to explore­, if not to discuss. And after a spring filled with both saccharine and simply sweet ladylike looks, it's no surprise her fall designs are a bit more heavy-handed.

But where Prada succeeds (those grotesque prints grow on you the more you stare at them), other designers, lacking subtlety, falter. In the wrong hands, styling tricks like midcalf-length jackets or coats shown over pants (Prada's pri­mary silhouette) will just make most women feel as if they're trying too hard. The same goes for broad thematic references that are all too literal—like Asian-inspired, baroque, or the dandy. Period references work best in the hands of designers such as Dries Van Noten, who takes an artistic approach to manipulating imagery, or Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, who, frankly, are too cool to be caught deadlifting a reference without having made it their own.

For fall, both of these houses played with Asian references. Van Noten took his cue from Chinese, Korean, and Japanese prints he saw at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. For all of Van Noten's prints, his collection was quiet—perhaps a little too quiet, given the straightforwardness of his menswear silhouettes—but his fans will find unique pieces to add to their stable of favorites. McCollough and Hernandez took a sportier turn, exploring boxy karate and kimono silhouettes that float away from the body (in a show set to the music of their friend Yoko Ono). The clothes had an easy, energetic feel, even though the jacket, pants, and skirt shapes were quite angular and complex.

But most women just need something to wear to work, and as far as the season's reality check goes, menswear—loose fits, oversize coats, and boxy jackets and pants—is the big game changer. At Balenciaga, Nicolas Ghesquière
offered one of the most desirable iterations in his collection dedicated to '80s working girls (secretaries and their boss­es, that is), while Phoebe Philo for Céline played with color-blocking and the season's standout color—blue—hers a bright cerulean. Both designers showed boyfriend pants—Philo's were cropped and detailed with functional zippers that opened at the knees—that added just the right irreverence. It's nice to see designers trying to be hip again, and Ghesquière and Philo have cool quotient to spare.

Elsewhere, elements such as embroideries and brocades were treated with almost fetishistic, brooding headiness, as were more animalistic touches: feathers at Ann Demeulemeester, and the more primitive antelope that turned up at Fendi. Even flowers took on a dark, moody spirit, particularly in London at Christopher Kane, at Burberry, and in Sarah Burton's inaugural show for the secondary line McQ.

Riccardo Tisci's show for Givenchy summed up the best of what fall has to offer for a sharp, sophisticated woman who likes a soupçon of aggression (Rooney Mara alert). He played with equestrian themes by way of Guy Bourdin, turning out pitch-perfect jackets and jodhpurs adorned with elongated, decon­structed peplums, which gave his silhouettes the movement and feeling of an evening gown. Tisci is among the designers who stick to their vision and do what they do best, as are Ghesquière, Rick Owens, Gareth Pugh, Proenza Schouler's McCollough and Hernandez, Joseph Altuzarra (who had an outstanding collection inspired by comic-book star Corto Maltese), and newcomers such as J. W. Anderson and Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen with their label, The Row.

This season saw the unceremonious departure of Raf Simons to make way for Jil Sander herself in her third round as designer for her namesake brand; six weeks later, Simons' heralded appointment at Dior; and the rapid ushering in of Hedi Slimane at Yves Saint Laurent after the departure of Stefano Pilati, who helmed the brand for eight years. No doubt Slimane will do great things. He is talented and knows how to cut a suit—precisely what that brand needs. But it was the poetic license of Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen that made a lasting impression. Her show of tiered and ruffled dresses may have had as little to do with reality as the eclectic ragamuffin that Marc Jacobs dreamt up for his own New York show, but she, like Jacobs, knows what is magical and transcendent about fashion. And after all the pomp, circumstance, and endless parade of wearable clothes, it's nice to admire fashion at its most artistic and sublime.

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